Amy Wohl‘s always excellent — and free — newsletter reports on a Linux for Desktops conference:

Nat Friedman of Ximian (another Novell acquisition), offered a lively presentation, pointing out that the Linux desktop is ready now and that most of the problem is that of a mismatch between what’s there and user expectations, rather than of something being wrong. … Nat notes that users turn to the Linux desktop for control and choice first, and lower cost, second. Barriers remain application availability, interoperability (file formats, network protocols, device drivers), and the cost of support (mainly because of the need for better usability and more manageability tools).

Usability? Hah! If you want to see the barrier to desktop Linux’s acceptance, watch over my shoulder one day as I try to use KDE or Gnome to do ordinary tasks such as keeping my MP3 player running if any other sound is emitted (oh yeah, guessing which processes are audio ones so that I can then manually Kill them hoping that I got the right one is reaaaal user friendly) or downloading and installing a new application. Fabulous end user experiences.

Lord love Linux and godspeed to it, but desktop Linux is so Windows 3.0.

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I’ve been guest blogging at the Corante Many2Many site and just posted an entry on how non-rich connections enable social networks.

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David Isenberg wonders out loud if the FCC has already made up its mind how to regulate Voice over IP and is rushing it through with only a show of open public comment.

VoIP is a huge threat to the existing telcos. Guess which way the FCC will lean if left to itself?

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Someone posted this as a comment on my skeptical blogging of a reported denial of service attack on a group that “outs” what it thinks are terrorist sites.

This arabic site looks like it is planning a DoS against Internet Hagannah to me.

It is a list of ip addresses.

That page has been removed for “administrative purposes.”

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I just gave a talk at the first Ascential user conference. I was talking mainly about how metadata is rooted in human desire. Afterwards, Bernard Plagman approached me and struck up a conversation. He apparently is the person who coined the term “metadata” in an article in 1971. Back when he wrote Data Dictionary/Directory Systems (Wiley, 1974), it was necessary to argue that metadata ought to be managed the same way data is.

And now, a short 30 years later, metadata is the new data.

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Dan Bricklin points out the irony of Microsoft using VisiCalc to demonstrate Longhorn’s backwards compatibility:

…the only reason I have a copy that can still work is that someone kept a “bootleg” uncopyprotected copy around

Just further evidence that, as Dan has written, “Copy Protection Robs the Future.”

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Constance Adams, a NASA architect, is telling us about TransHab, an inflatable living place for space travelers.

Two surprising (to me) aspects of living in no gravity: hot air doesn’t rise so airflows have to be redesigned, and sweat floats so electrical outlets need to be sweat-proof.

The initial design of TransHab didn’t design around the needs of the astronauts. “These are great engineers. Give them the right problem and they will sovle the hell out of it.” E.g., the astronauts need to be able to meet together and see one another, which means building a big enough area. How wide is too wide? In Space Lab there was 6.5 meter space. An astronaut fell asleep without being tethered and found it to be a wide area to navigate.

“If you can’t draw it, forget it.” In all of the drawings of the TransHab, no one had the guts to show astronauts sitting upside down relative to one another. Constance said that showed a flaw in the design.

They designed a galley that works like a kitchen, a first. (“On the shuttle, the galley’s next to the toilet. That’s always good.”) The kitchen table rests on a slow helix so that people of all heights can sit on the helix.

Constance noticed that designing TransHab’s outer shell faces the same problem as confronted by people weaving baskets.

She ends with a plea for caring about exploring space and for understanding the earth as a beautiful, closed system.

Whitfield Duffie asks if TransHab will accommodate sex since it is a wet activity. Constance replies that it’s designed to filter all sorts of fluids, but that in a body in zero gravity, fluids tend to gather in the head and feet, not the right places for sex.

Constance says that the ideal person for a flight to Mars is a 55 year old woman, but she doesn’t elaborate. [I myself am quite fond of women around the age of 55. Well, one anyway.]

Great talk. So much that was new, at least to me.

Jonathon Coulton is about to sing a song. The one he sang yesterday was very funny.

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Jeffrey Ballard of General Hydrogen: Fuel cells will be big.

Service technologies, not energy sources, drive energy systems.

Hydrogen lets you use any primary energy source as your source of hydrogen: coal, nuclear, wind, hydro, etc.

Hyrdogen cars will be able to produce electricity where you need it.

When will we see hydrogen cars in a show room? Jeffrey thinks that the current technology doesn’t have the duration need for commercial success. We’re still stuck on the first type of design we came up with that work. And he says that we need to get the cost down to $0.10/kw. It’s currently at $10.00/kw. [As always, I may have gotten key units wrong. Damn facts!]

He believes that we will turn to nuclear energy as a safe and clean source.

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Alan Goldstein is a biomaterials engineer. He says he’s going to convince us that xenobiology is an oxymoron, he says. Biology will not get out of the 21st century alive, he says. (He hasn’t explained what xenobiology is. It’s got something to do with alien life forms. Here’s the wikipedia on it.)

I’m not actually understanding much of this. The main points seems to be that the life we find or make (not sure which) will not be carbon based and that we should be worried about unrestrained scientific adventurism in this (which?) field. Ah, at the end he says:”The take home message? Nanotechnology trumps biotechnology.”

Ok.

A questioner asks what the problem is. Alan says that the question is whether bioengineering ought to go ahead as it is with no questions being asked.

Allow me to give myself a big fat D’oh! When I first posted this, I thought the speaker was Michael Braungart because that was the name in the schedule. But Braungart had to cancel, and Goldstein subbed for him. (Thanks to Jessie Scanlon for the correction.)

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Christine Peterson is being very funny and knowing about nanotech. She begins by reacting against the excessive informationalism of the previous speakers: “Atoms are cool too.” Right on.

Nanotech, she says, has not been overhyped. It can change our relationship to matter. Nano, she says, is about changing the structure not just of nanos but for objects of any size.

Why focus on machines, she asks, instead of on electronics or sensors? Because it’s “machines that can make all the others better.”

She wants to see the issues — pro and con — discussed seriously in public. The “short attention bozos” get all excited but then they lose interest and the real discussion can begin. (Hey, I’m one of them bozos!) We need, she says, to fight bad patents, balance protecting investments and encouraging openness, defend the public domain (Lessig is sitting on stage, the next to speak). What is the safest country to develop this potentially dangerous technology? How do you prevent abuse? She suggests that it’s probably cooperative development and stable institutions.

She recommmends foresight.org and nanodot.org. The guy next to me points to Utility Fog. Christine suggests a possible future: You have one object in your house and it changes into the various objects you need.

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